Adrian Peterson gets through first practice, wants more

Posted by Darin Gantt on August 14, 2012, 7:22 PM EST

AP

The goal is still to play in the opener.

Now that he has a practice under his belt, it seems more real to Adrian Peterson, and closer to reality.

“Despite what everyone else had to say, that was my vision,” Peterson said, via Tom Pelissero of 1500ESPN.com. “I seen a vision. I knew it was going to be a journey, a path, to get closer to that vision, and I’m closer. I see it. It’s closer now. It was far away in the beginning, but I’ve been working hard and just moving forward.

“So, hopefully, here in a couple weeks — here in a couple weeks, not hopefully — that vision will be right there in front of me in my lap. So, I’m looking forward to it.”

Peterson, who is less than eight months renewed from surgery to put his left knee back together, took 10 snaps during team drills, and ran twice, past defenders who were forbidden to touch him by coach Leslie Frazier.

“Initially, I kind of expected to get hit or bumped or something,” Peterson said, “and then I seen Coach Frazier run over to the defensive side of the ball and that kind of opened my eyes up to, hey, these guys are definitely not going to put their hands on me. I didn’t really like that too much.”

Asked if that meant he can’t put a shoulder into them, he grinned.

“Oh, I’m going to lower my shoulders,” Peterson said. “Those guys probably are going to get tired of touching off and get tired of me putting my shoulder into them. So, they’ll start firing back, and that’s pretty much what I wanted to do.”

Peterson stayed true to his word and didn’t wear a brace, and asked for more work than he was given.

He’s going to continue to push, but if Frazier’s smart, he’ll keep the hands-off order on for a bit.

Say what you want about the Vikings being a crummy team, this guy is the ultimate competitor. Oh ya and less than 8 months are you kidding what an animal! I’m not a vikes fan but it’s hard not to root for someone that’s already got his big payday and still is pushing to get back on the field asAP! Wish more of these diva athletes took a page from petersons book! Oh ya my fantasy championship was the week he got hurt and I missed out on 6000 lost by 2 pts! Oh well I’m still rooting for you AP!!!!

I am sick of the comments from people saying why is he playing for a team that will stink. He plays football. What do you want him to sit out until the team is good again? Dude was going for 1,000 yards last season when he went down on a cheap hit to the knees. Al Harris did the same thing to AP in his rookie season and AP only missed a couple of games. Even if he sat out to mid season there is still going to be a player that goes for his knees. That’s football. His doctors say he’s ready, his body tells him he’s ready. So he should be playing. That’s his job!

For the tools saying AP is wasting his talents on a bad team, well he was on a good team that had a chance to go to the Super Bowl & AP’s 3 fumbles in his prime during that game didn’t help them ultimately loosing. The fact is though in his absolute prime, at his best, he was on a team that was a Super Bowl contender. So his talent was not or hasn’t been wasted on bad teams.

Finally, the Rams went from 4-12 to win the Super Bowl & the PATS from 5-11 & the Giants won last year going 9-7. So anything, anything~ can happen during an NFL season. The Vikings have just as much a chance to win as anyone else. You never know. Just like AP’s knee.
So just shut up about waiting. Waiting for what? Another season? Cmon’ just let the dude play already.

Not sure why everyone is making such a big deal about Peterson coming back in 8 months. That’s plenty of time to be coming back! There’s lots of people in all levels of sports that have done it in that amount of time and shorter. With Peterson being a freak as is that shouldn’t shock anyone